Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles Review

Date: 11/18/2007

By Jason Nimer

I rarely have anything negative to say about Capcom. They have been behind a
good percentage of my favorite games of all time, and nearly everything with
Capcom on the box is at least worth renting, if not buying. My one complaint
with the company is that in the years since Resident Evil hit the PS1, they’ve
released a ton of remakes, spin-offs and ”Hey… remember how great this game
was?” self-congratulatory nods at the original classic. I’m not complaining
about the game’s direct sequels (2 and 4 being two of the best games of the past
decade), but the Outbreaks, REmakes, Collector’s Editions and Deadly Silences
are getting extremely tiresome. C’mon, Capcom… at least if you’re going to
remake the same games over and over, give us a new Dino Crisis or Maximo, for
crying out loud!

Capcom’s latest foray back, yet again, to the first Resident Evil games is
Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles for the Nintendo Wii. What could have been a
slapdash, crappy lightgun cash-in with Wii controls actually turned out to be a
pretty good game. Even better, it is the only time, in any Resident Evil remake
or flashback where I thought, “Oh… I remember that… cool,” rather than, “Dear
lord… if I have to walk through this mansion again, I am just gonna lose it.”
The first three Resident Evil games (and the prequel, Zero) and all the attempts
revisit them may be more played out that Billy Coen’s tribal tattoos, but
Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles is the most fun you’ll have with a home
lightgun game that doesn’t have “Time Crisis” in the title.

Before we get into specifics, it needs to be mentioned that Resident Evil:
Umbrella Chronicles release date was set to coincide with the introduction of
the Wii Zapper, a gun-shaped peripheral with spots for the Wii remote and
nunchuk. My review of the Wii Zapper and the game that comes packaged with it,
Link’s Crossbow Training, will be available on this site in just a few days, so
check back for those. Anyway, Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles is meant to be
played with the Wii Zapper, though I can promise you that not having the Zapper
won’t diminish the game’s fun one bit. Again, Umbrella Chronicles is meant to be
played with the Wii Zapper, but it is by no means necessary.

Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles is basically a first-person, on-rails
shooting game remake of the first few Resident Evil games. You’ll start the game
at the beginning of the Resident Evil timeline, on the runaway train from GCN’s
Resident Evil Zero. You’ll follow that game’s protagonists for a while, but
before it is all said and done, you’ll have made your way through the stories
from Zero, Resident Evil, Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 3: Nemesis. This
means you’ll be revisiting all the favorite moments from those games – the
mansion, the police station and finally, the showdown with Nemesis himself (the
cool version, not the Muppet from the Resident Evil movies). As an on-rails
shooter, the Resident Evil saga works a lot better than I thought it would. The
story is a tad watered down and the suspense of the originals is almost gone,
but Umbrella Chronicles is still a Resident Evil game through and through.